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From: stachour@sctc.com (Paul Stachour)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Need help finding a revision control system
Keywords: RCS SCCS PVCS UNIX HP-UX X-WINDOWS BIT-VCS
Message-ID: <1990Nov6.223109.24106@sctc.com>
Date: 6 Nov 90 22:31:09 GMT
References: <1990Nov1.231138.12793@inel.gov>
Organization: Secure Computing Technology Corporation
Lines: 52

Looking for a different and better configuration management system.

Here at SCTC, we have been doing a rather traditional form of 
configuration management of our software and documentation,
namely a base revision-control system (SCCS) with a set of
locally developed procedures laid on top.


Assuming we can find a product which runs on our hardware
and software platform (Sun/Unix + HPUX , X-Windows) and
integrates well with our current tools (C, Ada, gcc, emacs,
...), we'd like to move to something better.


The product that we are looking for needs to be able to:

  1) Handle traditional revisions, including branches,
     n-way differences, and n-way merges.

  2) Handle not only line-oriented ascii text, but be
     able to store, retrieve, take differences and merges
     such non-text items such as pictures and other
     similar bit-items.

  3) Provide change-advisories at a reasonably low-level
     to aid the maintenance process. [Example: Pgmr A
     changes the interface to function MsgQ_Add in the
     MsgQ module.  Upon attempt to store same, she is
     told that this will invalidate section 2.3 of the
     programmer reference card and section 4.7 of the
     reference manual.  Even better, within the editor
     she can ask for cross-references between the code
     she is changing to the documentation that it affects.
     She can also ask for semi-automatic checkout of the
     affected material.]  This includes automatic 
     notifications to parties affected by a given change.

  4) Have a programmable-interface to allow us to write
     C-programs, Ada-Programs, shell-scripts, ... to
     retrieve process and management information from CM.

If you have any experiences (good, bad, OK) in this area,
please mail to "stachour@sctc.com" (alternatively to
"stachour@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu if your mailer cannot reach
sctc.com).  I will summarize to the net, paraphrasing
your input to remove all identifying information.
  
-- 
Paul Stachour         Secure Computing Technology Corp
stachour@sctc.com      1210 W. County Rd E, Suite 100           
		 	   Arden Hills, MN  55112
                             [1]-(612) 482-7467